HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
+ 1 further entry on record
1915 Swiss-chalet lodge on Swiftcurrent Lake, home of Glacier Park's Room 308 ghost story
Many Glacier Road, Babb, MT 59411
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$$
Overnight rooms typically run $300-$400+ per night in peak summer season; day visitors can browse the lobby, dining room, and gift shop without a room reservation.
Access
Limited Access
Multi-story historic lodge with stairs between floors; mountain setting above 4,900 feet elevation
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1915 · Great Northern Railway Landmark Hotel · Largest Historic Lodge in Glacier National Park · Great Northern Railway Buildings National Historic Landmark District
The Great Northern Railway built Many Glacier Hotel to compete with the grand lodges other Western railroads were putting up across the Rockies. Railway president Louis W. Hill, who had already opened Glacier Park Lodge on the park's east side in 1913, wanted a second flagship hotel deeper in the mountains to anchor a chain of backcountry chalets and boat crossings. Construction on the Swiftcurrent Lake site started in 1914 and finished within a year; the hotel opened July 4, 1915.
Architect Thomas D. McMahon designed the five-story building around a central lobby with peeled-log balconies and a Swiss chalet exterior, part of Hill's broader marketing of Glacier as an accessible 'American Alps' for travelers who couldn't afford a trip to Switzerland. At the time of its opening, Many Glacier was the largest hotel in Montana.
The hotel has operated on a seasonal schedule ever since, typically running from early June to late September, with a small winter caretaker staff during the closed months. It's a contributing property within the Great Northern Railway Buildings National Historic Landmark District and a member of Historic Hotels of America. A 2016 renovation modernized guest rooms while preserving the original lobby and public spaces. The hotel closed for the 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened in June 2021.
Today the hotel has 214 guest rooms across value, parkside, lakeside, and suite categories, along with a dining room, lounge, and gift shop overlooking Swiftcurrent Lake and the surrounding peaks.
Sources
The best-known story centers on Room 308, where guests over the years have reported the sound of a party — laughter, voices, glasses — coming from inside when the room was confirmed empty. Regional Montana newspapers covering a 2013 book on Glacier's ghost stories recorded an account from a family whose nine-year-old son said he saw a woman in a red dress standing in the room; other guests elsewhere in the hotel have described waking to the feeling of someone sitting down on the edge of the bed.
A separate account, reported by the Flathead Beacon in 2016, comes from Steve Lautenbach, a longtime winter caretaker who told a paranormal researcher he once found an empty wine bottle lying in a hallway, the case it came from opened, with no footprints in the snow outside — the hotel sealed and empty of guests at the time.
Many Glacier hasn't built a paranormal-tourism program around these stories the way some hotels have; the reports circulate mostly through guest word-of-mouth and regional press rather than official hotel materials.
Notable Entities
Stay in the 1915 lodge on the shore of Swiftcurrent Lake, open seasonally from early June to late September. Guests have the run of the peeled-log lobby and dining room tied to the hotel's Room 308 ghost story.
Visit the hotel's public lobby, dining room, and lakeshore boardwalk without an overnight stay. A popular stop for park day-trippers hiking the surrounding valley.
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